Dead Tilt: Playing for Keeps at “The Blue Hotel,” the Prize and the Price

Janus Head ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-158
Author(s):  
Anthony Splendora ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Stephen Crane ◽  
Personal Reason ◽  
A Site

Stephen Crane had not advanced beyond his teenage years before twelve of the sixteen original members of his immediate family had died, and by his early twenties he was becoming symptomatic with the tuberculosis that would kill him at twenty eight. Death, ever present, overshadowed his life and like a threatening eclipse looms, markedly, in his best work. “The Blue Hotel,” a crowning realization of the short story form, is a site for the expurgation of that relentless spectre, its alienated and adversarial Swede a personification of Crane’s own dissolution, forthwith to be ritualistically purged. Such sacrifice is shown to be psychosocially well founded, historical in long practice and supported by current theory as a means of restoring order to exigent chaos; here Crane in 1898, nearing his unruly end, implemented sacrificial victimization allegorically, with cardplaying rather than the casting of lots his aleatory selector, for the most vital personal reason.

scholarly journals Office Setting as Organizational Structure in “Bartleby the Scrivener”

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401769043
Author(s):  
Lori Duin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Institutional Ethnography ◽  
Interpersonal Dynamics ◽  
Office Setting ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener ◽  
A Site

This article uses a methodology from the social sciences known as institutional ethnography to analyze the office setting in Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a site of social organization. This approach contributes to an understanding of how that office came to adopt specific structures as crucial to its functioning and how, as a consequence of those structures, individuals’ roles within the organization’s hierarchies became constituted. As fieldwork occurs inside of organizations, institutional ethnography also provides a tool for identifying and evaluating linguistic markers for an individual’s placement within a larger organizational structure. This approach to the story seems particularly useful for understanding the interpersonal dynamics at the heart of “Bartleby.” At the same time, it provides a method for identifying the larger institutional process at work in Melville’s story, one that contributes to the reproduction of a system of social relations in the workplace that requires subordination and compliance to insure its success.

scholarly journals Condemnation of Religious Concepts: An Examination of Chubak's "An Afternoon in Late Autumn" through Bakhtin's Theory of Grotesque Realism

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-67
Author(s):  
Sayed Mohammad Anoosheh ◽  
Muhammad Hussein Oroskhan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Lower Section ◽  
Persian Literature ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Late Autumn ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
A Site

The first traces of modernism in Iranian society can be found in the second decade of twentieth century which was deeply embedded with religious concepts. With regard to Persian literature, short story was developed as a new genre and a sign of modernism of that period by prominent Iranian writers such as Sadeq Hedayat (1903-1951), Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh (1892-1997) and Sadegh Chubak (1916-1998). In this way a cultural clash was broken out between the traditional religious concepts and the new modern ideas. Among these writers, Chubak was more influenced by the doctrine of modernism. He expressed his message colloquially through his short stories to instigate the lower part of society. His naturalistic style of writing delved into the most gruesome details of people's life with the aim of shocking his reader in experiencing a new perspective previously ignored. To highlight Chubak's style of writing attempt is made to explore one of the highly praised short stories entitled "An Afternoon in Late Autumn" on the ground of the Bakhtin's theory of grotesque realism cited in Rabelais and His World. Grotesque realism is a site upon which religious and social hierarchies can be subverted and renewed. This study tries to reveal that Chubak followed the Bakhtin's grotesque realism to evoke a new outlook particularly in the lower section of society.

scholarly journals Queer Bodies, Queer Lives in China English Contact Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Paiz ◽  
Anthony Comeau ◽  
Junhan Zhu ◽  
Jingyi Zhang ◽  
Agnes Santiano
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Short Story ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
Fiction Writing ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
China English ◽  
Ha Jin ◽  
Queer Spaces ◽  
A Site ◽  
Post Cultural Revolution

Abstract Ha Jin and his works have contributed significantly to world Englishes knowledge, both through direct scholarly engagement with contact literatures and through the linguistic creativity exhibited in his works of fiction (Jin 2010). His fiction writing also acts as a site of scholarly inquiry (e.g., Zhang 2002). Underexplored, however, are how local varieties of English as used to create queer identities. This paper will seek to address this gap by exploring how Ha Jin created queer spaces in his short story “The Bridegroom.” This investigation will utilize a Kachruvian world Englishes approach to analyzing contact literatures (B. Kachru 1985, 1990, Y. Kachru & Nelson 2006, Thumboo 2006). This analysis will be supported by interfacing it with perspectives from the fields of queer theory and queer linguistics (Jagose 1996, Leap & Motschenbacher 2012), which will allow for a contextually sensitive understanding of queer experiences in China. This approach will enable us to examine how Ha Jin utilized the rhetorical and linguistic markers of China English to explore historical attitudes towards queerness during the post-Cultural Revolution period. These markers include the use of local idioms and culturally-localized rhetorical moves to render a uniquely Chinese queer identity.

scholarly journals The Reader, the text, the Context: An Exploration of a Choreographed Response to Literature

1995 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Smagorinsky ◽  
John Coppock
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Classroom Environment ◽  
Classroom Interaction ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
School Students ◽  
Psychological Tools ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
Response To Literature ◽  
Context Of Learning

Much current theory about response to literature stresses the reader's active role in constructing meaning, with reader, text, and context affecting the responses of individual readers (Beach, 1993). Response to literature, like most classroom interaction, tends to take a linguistic form. In a supportive classroom environment, however, a range of response media can potentially mediate students' transactions with literature. The present exploratory study used stimulated recall to elicit a retrospective account from two alternative school students who choreographed a dance to depict their understanding of the relationship between the two central characters in a short story. In their account they indicate that in composing their text they (a) initiated their interpretation by empathizing with the characters, (b) represented the characters' relationship through spatial images and configurations, and (c) used the psychological tool of dance to both represent and develop their thinking about the story. Their thought and activity were further mediated by the social context of learning, including the communication genres of the classroom, their own interaction, their teacher's intervention, and the stimulated recall interview itself. Their account illustrates the way in which reader, text, and context participate in a complex transaction when readers construct meaning for literature. Their experience also illustrates the ways in which the values of an instructional setting influence the extent to which learners may take advantage of the psychological tools available to them for growth.

scholarly journals Women, Sexuality and Politics in Modern Cambodian Literature: The Case of Soth Polin’s Short Story

MANUSYA ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 76-91
Author(s):  
Klairung Amratisha
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Female Subject ◽  
The Political ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
Patriarchal Power ◽  
A Site

This essay aims to explore the political messages found in the work of Soth Polin, one of Cambodia’s influential writers in the 1970s. Soth’s short story, Sramol Ptī Oey..Khluon Ūn Rahaek [My Dear Husband…My Body Was Torn Apart] illustrates how Cambodia was in a state of physical and moral decay during the Vietnam War as a result of attacks from Vietnamese Communists and American influence over the Cambodian leaders during the Vietnam War. In Soth’s stories, pornographic, philosophical and political elements are artistically interwoven. The author uses women’s bodies and sexuality as both a site of patriarchal control and as a site of negotiation between the female subject and the patriarchal power. The feminised body of Cambodia symbolizes the political oppression of foreign powers and resistance to these powers. Soth’s text shows the continuity of traditional concepts and new creativity in modern Cambodian literature.

scholarly journals Unreal Homes: Belonging and Becoming in Indian Women Narratives

Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Sofia Cavalcanti
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Indian Women ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
Moving Force ◽  
Structural Framework ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Jhumpa Lahiri ◽  
A Site

In an epoch which has to do fundamentally with space, the concept of home has entered the epistemic scene, both as a commodity and a discursive formation. Contemporary Indian women writers, who are a major facet of present Anglophone literature, have often chosen the domestic sphere as the structural framework of their stories. However, despite the traditional idea of home as a static physical site where women’s lives unfold, a more complex and fluid concept emerges from their narratives. After discussing conflicting definitions of home both as a site of belonging and becoming, I will provide a comparative analysis of the short story Mrs. Sen’s by Jhumpa Lahiri and the novel Ladies’ Coupé by Anita Nair. By looking at the transitional spaces inhabited by the women protagonists—respectively, the diasporic space in the U.S. and a train car in India—I will show how home is a psychic-inhabited place taking shape in memory, imagination, and desire. In conclusion, home is an unreal site at the core of women’s subjectivities, transcending the physicality of the homeland or the household and assuming a metonymic significance. Its inward or outward-moving force gives birth to “homeworlds” made of liminal paths where new possibilities of identity construction are produced.

‘Something to be haunted by’: Adaptive monsters and regional mythologies in ‘The Forbidden’ and Candyman

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-122
Author(s):  
Adam Ochonicky
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cross Cultural Adaptation ◽  
American Midwest ◽  
Urban Legends ◽  
Regional Dynamics ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
A Site

Since Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992) was first released more than 25 years ago, there has been a great deal of scholarly commentary on the film’s treatment of class, race, gender and urban legends. To a lesser degree, Clive Barker’s short story, ‘The Forbidden’ (1986), has received some critical attention largely because of its status as the source material for the film’s general premise and now-iconic central monster. This article expands on such existent scholarship by analysing regional mythologies and the cross-cultural adaptation of place-specific monsters within and across both texts. To develop these primary arguments, this article extracts a theory of adaptation and location from Neil Gaiman’s novel, American Gods ([2001] 2011), and applies that theory to the acts of adaptation pervading ‘The Forbidden’ and Candyman. In complementary ways, all three of these texts explicitly reflect on the complexities of adapting monsters to precise locales. Notably, both American Gods and Candyman take place in the American Midwest; this regional setting greatly impacts the conceptualization of each narrative’s supernatural beings (Gaiman’s cohort of gods and the Candyman, respectively). Within popular culture, the Midwest is regularly depicted as both a site of nostalgic memory and a cultural space defined by the willful forgetting or elision of history. This article asserts the importance of recognizing the Midwest as a recurrent staging ground for horror narratives, particularly those featuring monsters who embody forgotten, misremembered, suppressed or denied pieces of history. Further, by examining such regional dynamics in American Gods and Candyman, this article develops the concept of ‘adaptive monsters’, which describes horrific beings who assume symbolic attributes of the historical, cultural and/or spatial environments into which they are adapted. Overall, through analyses of ‘The Forbidden’, Candyman and American Gods, this article demonstrates how regional mythologies (especially those of the Midwest) shape the adaptation of monstrous beings in horror narratives and across textual forms.

Ecologies of Knowledge in Chirere’s Tudikidiki (2007): on Decolonial Ontological Turn

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
Mbwera Shereck ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Practical Life ◽  
Ontological Turn ◽  
A Site ◽  
Epistemic Perspective ◽  
Epistemic Systems

This article is an attempt to bring decolonial strands of critical thinking to African/Zimbabwean literary tradition. It explores how Memory Chirere uses the short story genre as a territory of practical life where decolonial practical relations of emancipatory knowledge production are weighed. It argues that the anthology, Tudikidiki, (2007) as Chirere's territory of artisanship of practices, evokes ecologies of knowledge crucial for developing decolonial options. From decolonial epistemic perspective, the article posits that the enduring historical duration of coloniality has elucidated the presence of unequal relations in African knowledge production systems. In its multiple manifestations, coloniality has disfigured, distorted, reconfigured and eventually transformed African ways of knowing. The result is epistemicide, in which Western epistemic systems are valorised as indispensable and unassailable, while indigenous forms of African knowing are vilified as setting a site for conflicting savage desires and derisions. Against this background, this paper considers the imperative need for engaging both indigenous theoretical and practical epistemological projects in terms of the nuances of decoloniality within literary studies. It insists that decolonial turn necessitates a process of ontological change that speaks to the emergency of nascent ecologies of knowledges.

Contesting Homogeneity: Stereotypes and Heteronormativity in Aruni Kashyap’s His Father’s Disease

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debajyoti Biswas
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Literary Regionalism ◽  
A Site ◽  
Dialogic Space

Abstract This article analyses Aruni Kashyap’s short story collection His Father’s Disease. Kashyap challenges hegemonic structures through an emerging writing area tentatively classified as ‘Anglophone fiction from Northeast India’. By engaging with Foucault’s reading of Power/Knowledge this article examines the disciplining of literary regionalism (Anglophone literature from Northeast India), territory and sexuality encapsulated in Kashyap’s exposition of heteronormative societies across cultures. Through the stories Kashyap weaves a dialogic space within the narrative world that challenges various forms of stereotypes relating to regional representation in literary works as well as regional identity and sexuality prevailing in the contemporary world’s existing social and literaryscape. Therefore, it becomes pertinent to observe how Kashyap’s text becomes a site of contention where on one hand the stereotype is accommodated within the power structure, hence controlled and regulated by various agencies, and on the other hand the same knowledge is appropriated by the author as a counter-narrative/reverse-discourse.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document